WEBVTT - Silicon Valley's Van-Dwellers 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:05.760 On a street shaded by big redwood trees on the 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:09.680 east side of Mountain View, California. White McGhee is inspecting 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:13.440 parked r vs. He's a police sergeant here a wealthy 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.360 town that same to Google one of the world's richest corporations. Yeah, 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:19.040 and you can see and see how this all the 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.720 debris are on the windshield, the spider webs. I'll do 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.599 my marking and I know what time you know that 0:00:26.640 --> 0:00:28.680 I've been here in general, right, And we give a 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:30.680 lot of leeway. We don't come like on the hour 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:32.800 of the third day. We actually typically give it like 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.400 a fourth day. Um, and I'll come back and check 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:37.800 on it and see if it's abandoned. Sergey McGee spends 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:39.479 a lot of his time knocking on the doors of 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.320 hundreds of our v's, lining the city streets, logging license plates, 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.519 and marking wigs that haven't moved for several days. Yeah. Way, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:48.720 and this one's unmarked. Yeah, this carter has been marked. 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.760 And then we'll go from there. We'll try to contact 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:53.680 the person and warn him. And now we're get a 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:56.800 ticket with and riding it's tobole. They get two of 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.360 those typically before we we tell although we do allier, 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:02.920 you know, authority that to the first time. That's the 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.319 last thing we want to do. These vehicles aren't abandoned 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.840 their people's homes. Mountain View is the center of Silicon 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.240 Valleys tech boom, and it's minting millionaires almost by the hour. 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:15.840 But the byproduct of all this new wealth is that 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:18.200 thousands of people are being forced to live in our 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.559 vs across San Francisco and the Broader Bay Area because 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:24.480 rent and house prices have risen so high. Living in 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:26.360 an r V used to be a cool life hack 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:30.399 for a few iconoclastic Googlers, extending the Silicon value myth 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.160 of sleeping under your desk and working out of a garage. 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.520 Now it's become an act of desperation and a symbol 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:39.080 of a housing crisis that can no longer be ignored. 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:43.720 I'm per Gatkari and I'm Alistabar. You're listening to Decrypted. 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.000 A small handful of Googlers have lived in our vs 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.920 on and off since the company's early days. I recently 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.320 spoke to one former Google and named Matt Weaver, who 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:58.400 did it in two thousand five. For about a year, 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:00.080 I didn't have to live in an r V to 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:02.720 make and me I did at least a part because 0:02:02.760 --> 0:02:06.200 of it. There I had a new kind of uh 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:09.120 tech job in the Bay Area that I was doing 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.320 perfectly fine at um and lived in an RV in 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.600 non fall parts tipally to say that I had done 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.519 such a thing, it was a fun thing. Back then, 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.240 Google was a newly public company with about five thousand employees, 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:23.880 and Facebook wasn't much more than a dorm um project. 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:28.040 Since then, things have changed dramatically. Google now has roughly 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.399 a hundred thousand full time staff and tens of thousands 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.080 of temporary and contract workers, and Facebook, which is headquartered 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.360 just a few miles to the north, has about thirty 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:43.080 five thousand employees. Then there's Uber, Lift, Airbnb, Palanteer, PayPal LinkedIn. 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.440 The list goes on. Nowhere near enough housing has been 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.639 built to keep up, so home prices and rents have soared, 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.239 and the result is thousands of people living in r 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.079 v's in towns all over Silicon Valley. If I look 0:02:55.080 --> 0:02:57.680 at this road, if you just count with the naked eye, 0:02:58.000 --> 0:03:03.880 it's one, two, three for five, six, seven, kind of eight. 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:07.440 But then if if you include these ones, that's it's funny. 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.200 I counted about fifty in and around Google's campus on 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.720 the eastern edge of Mountain View. The city has logged 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:17.280 almost three hundred Palo Alto, Berkeley and other Bay Area 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:20.360 towns of similar numbers. The r vs are usually white 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.400 or beige, and they either parked along leafy residential streets 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.960 lined with detached suburban houses, or they're tucked away near 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:38.160 office pocks. Hi, I'm sorry to bother. The knocked on 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:40.880 the door of a cute ranch style house and one 0:03:40.920 --> 0:03:43.400 long time resident was at home, so we chatted for 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:46.320 about half an hour on his front porch. Across the street. 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:50.000 There are about ten RVs. Nice guy works over at Google, 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.840 comes over, shakes my hand, says Hi, offers me a beer. 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:56.200 He's just going to be living out of it. Girlfriend 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:58.200 would come by at four o'clock and go up on 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:02.040 top and do sunbathing. We always joked it is what 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:06.000 it is, and and that was that of all of 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:12.520 the r vs. Maybe that's of what it is. The other, however, 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:17.400 is a pure um and everyone has the same tagline. 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:22.039 It's too expensive here for them to get um, you know, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:25.240 the house or an apartment or whatever it is. He 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:29.080 sounds like he's accepted the situation, but he's had mixed 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.080 feelings about the RVs for some time. Google keeps taking 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:34.400 care of my home value. It keeps going up. Thank 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:39.680 you Google, But um, you know with that you don't 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.760 want the crime. I gotta. I got a kid. This year, 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.760 tensions between homeowners and the people living in the r 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:50.480 vs has boiled over. In March, the nearby community of 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.240 Berkeley voted to ban RV parking on public streets, and 0:04:54.320 --> 0:04:56.920 a few weeks later, Mountain View followed with a ban 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.600 of its own. In the lead up to that vote 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.159 in b a city council meeting devolved into a screaming match. 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:05.800 Would you like us to discuss the r V item 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.360 or not? Would you like us to discuss the RB 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:11.479 item or not? There's so much anst around this issue 0:05:11.560 --> 0:05:13.960 right now. One day, when I was looking at a 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.640 local news website, I spotted a comment from a Mountain 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:20.159 View resident which said stop feeding the bears, as in 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:22.520 the r V dwellers are bears that should be removed. 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:25.000 So I set out to talk to our V dwellers 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.800 and hear their stories. What I found, of course, is 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.200 that they're not animals. Despite what that amount of View 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.600 isn't wrote. They're often well educated, hard working people who 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:36.120 would be living in a comfortable apartment or small house 0:05:36.160 --> 0:05:39.160 in almost any other part of the US. Mountain View 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.160 officials have checked the data, and contrary to the perception 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.120 of some homeowners, there's no evidence that our V dwellers 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:49.880 are committing crimes at a higher rate than other residents. Still, 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.960 Googlers who live in our vs are keeping a low 0:05:52.000 --> 0:05:55.320 profile these days. I put letters on windshields of about 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.520 twenty r vs around the company's headquarters campus asking them 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:01.400 to get in touch. There's sometimes a telltale sign they 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.400 work for the Internet giant. You can often see one 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.120 of those multicolored Google bikes part next to an RV, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.240 so the inhabitant can jump on and cycle to the office. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.640 Put my letter there as well. There we go. The 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.799 thing to do is you pop it under the windscreen wiper, 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.560 rather than obviously knock on the door and disturbed them. 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:32.320 Is only in the morning right now, so people probably 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:36.080 haven't got up yet. A few days later I got 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.359 an email from an anonymous address. It said, our group 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.240 tries to stay discreet avoiding media inquiries, but we understand 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.039 the importance of having our narrative told I recommend you 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.360 reach out to Van Dweller's at Google dot com. When 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.960 I emailed that official company address, I got no reply. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.920 There is a Googler who calls himself Brandon S who's 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.200 been blogging about his experiences, but he tends to focus 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.040 more on financial planning advice, such as how to buy 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.720 a house elsewhere while you save money living in a 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.440 vehicle in Silicon Valley. And he didn't want to talk 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.280 to us for this podcast, but I was able to 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.200 talk to other people currently living in r v's. On 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.280 a sunny spring afternoon, I met up with a guy 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.960 called Sam about a hundred yards from Google's headquarters. Hello, 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.680 how are you? Sam's forty one and he spent most 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.200 of his career in I T but he currently drives 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.200 for Lift. His wife, Linda, works at a big drug 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.480 development company in Silicon Valley. Sam looks like any other 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.560 tech nerd. He had a sharp haircut, wore trendy jacket 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:36.920 and expensive jeans, and he rode up to me on 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.400 an electric scooter with a high end action camera attached 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:46.560 to his chest. Scooter. Yeah, runs, that's pretty cool, I 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:52.200 think so. Uh so you live around around here? Well 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:55.240 in the r v s, So yeah, on literally on 0:07:55.280 --> 0:08:00.320 this road or um. Some days we're right now, just 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:04.200 on the other side, um over between, like the Yahoo building, 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:09.520 I'm sorry, the YouTube building and the Google Maps forget 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.080 the Sam and Linda used to own a house in Sacramento, 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.800 but they sold and moved when Ninda got that new job. 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.600 Once they arrived, they found out they couldn't afford rent. 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:23.640 This is despite a combined income of roughly a hundred 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:26.320 thousand dollars a year. In most places, you live like 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.560 a king on that, but here it's very hard to 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:30.920 make ends meet if you want to also build rainy 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.320 day savings, as we're all told we're supposed to do, 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.240 And we just did the math when we were, you know, 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.400 renting a room and we could kind of stay afloat, 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.880 but there's no way to save any money for retirement 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.400 or the future at all. We just be floating and 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:48.959 then at some point rent prices will go beyond our 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:53.800 ability to pay. Turns out living without a permanent address 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.679 is complicated. We agreed to change Sam and Linda's names 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:00.400 because they're afraid that if Linda's employer find out she 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.080 lives in an RV she'll be fired. It's a very 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.760 gray area living out of a out of an rv UM. 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:13.000 There's big litigation on whether or not it's even legal 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:16.080 to live out of an RV and have a bank 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.720 account and things like this. So once you become homeless, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.400 it's very difficult to become unhomeless. That's because if you 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.640 don't have a traditional address, it's impossible to get landlord 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:30.760 references to rent a home, and it's trickier to arrange 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.199 a mortgage if you want to buy. Sam and Linda 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:35.000 had to talk to a lawyer about how to keep 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:39.400 their bank accounts and retirement savings accounts. Financial regulations mean 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.880 banks usually want a residential address for account holders, and 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:46.280 pier boxes are frowned upon. Technically, they can see our 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.840 accounts and and there go out. I did I did 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.760 not think of that, uh E trade accounts, All of 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:55.760 that would could technically go by by if we did not, 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.000 if we were not very careful about how we did this. 0:09:58.600 --> 0:10:00.840 Sam didn't want to go into more detail because he's 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:04.240 concerned about losing access to their accounts. Now that they've 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.960 been in this situation for at least a year, he's 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.079 torn about whether they should have made the move to 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:13.440 Silicon Valley at all. It's a mixed blessing living. I mean, 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:16.679 who wants to live half homeless? I mean it's as 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.560 as much as it can look glamorous online, it comes 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:22.920 as its own problems. Sam struggles in particular with the 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.000 neighborhood tensions. It's not easy knowing homeowners don't want you around. 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.439 I would imagine if I paid two million dollars for 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:31.280 a house, I'm not in a hurry to see somebody 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:33.720 living out in a r V out on the street either, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.000 you know, so I people pay very high property taxes 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.280 here and to see people kind of skirting that, I'm 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:44.480 sure it's that's not making people excited about about their neighbors. Plus, 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.520 Sam doesn't work at Google, so he can't enjoy company 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:49.880 perks like showers that make it a lot easier for 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.480 employees to live in an RVY. The Google employees that 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:57.800 everything subsidized for them, food, laundry, anything they could possibly want, 0:10:57.840 --> 0:10:59.840 which is why they can downsize totally do a van. 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:03.720 It's one stop shop for them. For some people, it's 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.920 it's a stepping stone. For some people it's a it's 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:10.080 a trap. I wanted to get a better sense for 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:12.440 what life is like for people living in r vs 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.200 without Google providing toilet, showers, food, and laundry. So I 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.679 spent an afternoon with another RV resident, Paul Kastner. So 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.559 you want to give me a tour? Sure, Um, this 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.439 is the living room. Paul has spent his career in tech, 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.920 including a recent stint at a semiconductor equipment supplier as 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.640 a quality engineer. The company cut staff, including Paul, and 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:35.800 now he's looking for a new job and surviving in 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.560 an RV. Got a couch that folds down into a bed, 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.920 a couple of chairs. Um, I'm a musician, so I 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.880 have a nice speaker system here with and can listen 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:53.560 listen to songs. Um, that's cool, yeah, all right. And 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:59.560 then kind of kitchen here. Kitchen I think of it 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.319 like a European kitchen. It's got everything that anybody here has, 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:07.040 but just like tiny bit smaller inside, Like got a 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:13.720 stove and I think, umallon tank in the back, uh, 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:18.280 and then two tanks by the way. That lapping sound 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:21.680 in the background was Paul's dog, Bandit, who was very friendly, 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:24.199 and I was impressed by the way Paul made use 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.120 of his small space, but it did smell musty, I 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.920 have to say, and dealing with sewage seemed difficult to 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:33.079 There's a service center about eight miles north where Paul 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:35.640 can go to emptiest tanks and refill with fresh water. 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.439 The other option is to use a hose to empty 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.640 the waist directly into the sewer system through sewer cleanouts 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.320 on the street. Paul says that goes to the same 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.400 place everyone else's waist goes. But ultimately Paul's main challenge 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.079 is the same as sounds. Your neighbors don't like you, 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.199 or they're even scared of you, And for the people 0:12:54.240 --> 0:13:08.280 living in r v's it's about to get worse. In March, 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:13.080 Berkeley band r vs from parking overnight, Pacifica, East Palo Alto, 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.960 and other Bay Area towns have enacted limits as well. 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:18.680 At the end of March, mountain View voted to do 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.400 the same. It's unclear when this band will kick in, 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:24.559 but it's coming. At a mountain View city meeting in March, 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.840 several residents and our redwellers blame big tech companies for 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.120 indirectly raising prices and not doing enough to fix the issue. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.120 The city council was criticized to Dozens of people came 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.559 with signs that read I stand with Mountain View Vehicle residents, 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.400 and a group representing the people living in our vs 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.720 came to speak at the event. Preventing parking and throwing 0:13:44.720 --> 0:13:48.000 more people out of our community is unconscionable. I do 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:50.880 not want to live in a town where the only 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.240 people who can afford to be here are very very rich, 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.880 tech eas or very very old retirees like myself. Thank 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:02.920 you again. This is a polarizing issue for Mountain View residents. 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:04.880 Some people are standing up for the rights of our 0:14:04.960 --> 0:14:08.760 View residents, but other homeowners are happy about the parking bands. 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:11.440 These are often people who were lucky enough to have 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.040 bought a home many years ago. They don't want new 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:17.760 apartment buildings marring their suburban paradise, and they get angry 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.520 at the thought of affordable housing bringing poorer people to 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:24.400 their neighborhoods. For at least a decade, this attitude has 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.360 won out. Rising salaries and a growing population, combined with 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.760 a limited supply of new homes, has sparked a surgeon prices. 0:14:32.440 --> 0:14:35.360 The median rent in Mountain View has almost doubled since 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:39.000 late two thousand, ten to four thousand dollars a month. 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:43.280 That's nearly triple the national average. The median Mountain View 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:46.640 home value is one point eight million dollars, up from 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.160 seven hundred and fifty thousand ten years ago. Landlords are richer, 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.160 homeowners feel richer and smarter for buying early. The odd 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.160 homeless person on the street could easily be ignored or 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:00.720 explained away as a product of poor life choices. The 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.960 r V explosion is changing all of this. When cities 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.480 cracked down, r V dwellers usually move on to the 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:08.600 next town and hope for the best. But now that 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.680 many towns and limiting parking, it's unclear where all these 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:15.040 people will go. I spoke to Jennifer Loving, the CEO 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.520 of a group called Destination Home, which is trying to 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.440 reduce homelessness in Santa Clara County, where Mountain View is located. 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.680 She blames the lack of affordable housing for low income workers. 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.040 She said, this type of real estate isn't as profitable 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.560 for developers who would rather build mcmansion's for wealthy tech workers. 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:37.160 We have rising rents, we have gentrification, we have people 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.480 being displaced, and and all of that together is creating 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:46.480 an untenable situation for thousands and thousands of families and 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:48.640 individuals that are trying to live and work here in 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.080 this community. I also spoke to Alison Hicks, one of 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.000 only two Mountain View Council members to vote against the 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:57.840 r V parking ban. She says the tech boom happens 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.760 so quickly that residents are struggling to adjust to the 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.280 fact that they now live in a densely populated area 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.000 with different needs. A hundred years ago, this area was 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.560 farm land. It was the valley of heart to Delight. 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.520 After post war it became a suburb, and now we're 0:16:12.560 --> 0:16:16.960 becoming a more urban place. Urban places have problems that 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.560 suburban and rural places down. So this is the reason 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.920 Sergeant McGee spent so much time driving around Mountain View 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.840 keeping track of our V dwellers and offering them support, 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:30.080 warning them of the coming parking band, and pushing people 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.920 to sign up for what little affordable housing is available 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:35.800 right now. And there are other worrying signs too. When 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.800 I rode along with Sergeant McGee one recent afternoon and 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.280 our V resident ran away from us, we jumped in 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:43.840 the police car and quickly caught up with him. Sergeant 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.760 McGee found what he suspected was meth and fetamine on 0:16:46.800 --> 0:16:49.720 this person. So what do you do now, I'm again 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:56.480 I can bug him to take a big problem, um 0:16:57.040 --> 0:16:58.760 buck m but he's going to come right out. So 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.720 he lives in that RV right where that canvass very 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.399 painted a citation go to court. And then there's that 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.680 sewage issue. Sergean McKee stopped to inspect one r the 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:12.320 that had brown liquid leaking from an outlet pipe near 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.760 the rear wheel. And we've again complaints about this one 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:16.960 leaking sewage and I just haven't got it with leaking. 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.520 You can see there's dried something underneath it. But you 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:23.680 can see the duct tape and say the cap that's 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:26.520 that's the reservoir for the sewage. So it's you can 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:29.240 see you see where it's darker right underneath it. Yeah, 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:32.080 you can see where it's it's been dripping. The sergeant 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:35.440 tested the slowly growing pool to prove it was human waste. 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.600 It was, and he got serious with the people living 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:41.479 in the vehicle. A self driving car world passed as 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.000 he lectured the two residents. So you guys need to 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.960 take care of it like a SAP, so we're supposed 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.479 to there's a new ordinance for towing like we're supposed 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.239 to it. I'm not gonna towd today, but tomorrow if 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.560 I come out here and it's like this, it's getting towed, 0:17:54.600 --> 0:18:06.919 all right. So you've been notified so early after all 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.520 your reporting on this. What was your sense about how 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:11.760 people are feeling about the issue. Do they think tech 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.040 companies should be doing more? Yeah? Most people I heard 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:17.560 from think think Google, another big tech company, should really 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:20.040 step up more than they've done so far, and in 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.760 the short term they should at least make some of 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:26.400 their big parking lots available so are the owners can 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.600 park pretty safely overnight. What about this concept, you know, 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.840 this historical concept of the company town which auto companies, 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:35.919 mining companies have done in the past, where they not 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.679 only build housing directly for their workers, but in some 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.920 cases whole towns. Yeah. I've spoken to someone who's familiar 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:45.080 with Google's thinking on this, and they said the Internet 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.000 Giant is not at all interested in becoming a residential 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.760 home builder or like a major landlord for staff, and 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.760 it's actually, unfortunately unlikely to make car parks available for 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.920 RV parking either. Google officially declined to comment for this story, 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.159 but they did point me to an interview one of 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:05.480 their public policy managers did. She's Rebecca pros And and and 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:09.200 she spoke to PBS back in two thousand sixteen. Obviously, 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.800 our footprint creates pressure, creates pressure on housing and transportation. 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:16.320 But that pressure isn't just tech. It's not just Google. 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.840 It is all the industries that are creating the economy 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:22.119 of the Bay Area. We all have to work together 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:24.080 to figure out what we are going to look like 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:26.520 and how we're going to live. Alie, I mean, she's 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:29.880 right that this isn't solely Google's problem to deal with, 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:32.479 but it is true that most of the wealth created 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:34.680 in the last few years has come from the tech industry. 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.080 So I wonder is there a push for Google and 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:39.920 other tech companies to pay more in local taxes. Yeah, 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.719 there's a general feeling, including from that guy in Mountain 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.840 View that we spoke to, the resident, that the industry 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.680 isn't paying enough tax on their huge profits that they make. 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:51.920 But Google is giving money to a lot of organizations 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.560 to tackle these issues. It's also got a very big 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.639 plan to invest millions and millions of dollars in an 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:01.480 area called North Bay Shore, which is nearby it's headquarters. 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:05.199 And this will add thousands of homes, including about of 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:08.320 homes in that plan that will be affordable housing. It's 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:11.439 definitely encouraging that Google could help to create thousands of 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.159 new homes through that plan. But I can't help thinking 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:17.040 Google is a company that has more than a hundred 0:20:17.080 --> 0:20:19.960 billion dollars in cash on its balance sheet, so still 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:22.560 even after those millions are donated, it's a bit like 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:24.840 you or I giving ten dollars to a homeless person 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.880 we pass on the street. And that housing advocate Jennifer 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:30.440 Loving that we spoke to, she thinks the North Bay 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.600 Shore plan should include a lot more affordable housing. She said, 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:37.800 is nowhere near enough to solve this problem. And then 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:40.720 of course you also have to think about the fact 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.280 that it's not just about money. You know, Google could 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.160 in theory throw a million billions and billions of dollars, 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.080 not millions of dollars, but you need the political will 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:51.240 as well, so people who live in these areas that 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.040 they actually have to want to help their neighbors. And 0:20:54.080 --> 0:20:57.040 when push comes to shove sometimes you know that doesn't 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.239 happen so if it does take time, maybe year is 0:21:00.400 --> 0:21:02.480 to really address this issue. Do you think there's a 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.160 risk that the whole situation could escalate if it's allowed 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:07.920 to fester. Yeah. I think there are a couple of risks, 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.880 And the first one was was put pretty well by 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.159 Allison Hicks, who was that Mountain View council member we 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:18.080 spoke to. Her point is that if regular people can't 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:22.240 afford to live here, the fabric of the society breaks down. 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:26.560 So if you think of teachers, chefs, trash collectors, baristas, 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:30.160 those types of people, these are people who make everyone's 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:34.400 community function properly. And if these people are pushed further 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.280 and further way, it's going to become a strange city 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.080 and especially very hard for those people. And you can't 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:42.640 have a town that functions if we only have tech 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.199 workers living in it. Just even if you have no 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:48.720 compassion for people themselves, you know, it won't be a 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.560 functioning city as I know it. It wouldn't be a 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:53.520 city that I would want to live in. And the 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:55.840 second issue could be even more of a risk, and 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.600 that's that tech companies could go elsewhere. So in February, 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.680 the Google CEO summed up pitch I he announced a 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.879 plan to spend thirteen billion dollars and that would go 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.679 on new offices and data centers. And a lot of 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:13.040